Official Feedback Thread: Lonelywood

dextructoid

Welcome All,

Lonelywood, the second new adventure zone in Storm King's Thunder, is now available.

After finishing Bryn Shander, your hero travels north in the company of Wulfgar to contact Catti-brie in Lonelywood. You find both Lonelywood and the other nearby towns under threat from marauding bands of frost goblins and ice trolls led by frost giants. Lonelywood itself comes under direct attack and is flooded by refugees from the surrounding countryside. You must fight alongside Wulfgar and Catti-brie to defend the town and deal with the growing problem of keeping so many people sheltered and fed in such a harsh climate.

When building Lonelywood, we wanted to capture that feeling of living on the edge of a vast wilderness. The map is large, but only a small number of locations are directly tied into the main storyline. Large portions of the map are open for exploration and are populated with Heroic Encounters, discoverable quests, and named enemies. As you travel away from town, the terrain becomes more rugged and the forest itself becomes more foreboding.

Features:

• 5 directed storyline quests
  
• 6 new heroic encounters
  
• 12 repeatable quests
  
• 6 "found" quests
  
• Ostorian Relic hunting
  

We would love to get your feedback on Lonelywood. All feedback is welcome, but there are a few items we’d like to focus on:

• When playing with other people in the zone were there enough objective critters and clickables to complete your quests in a reasonable time?
  
• Were you able to follow the storyline?
  
• If you have an upgraded fishing pole from the Winter Event, try the fishing quests with and without it. Was the difference in completion time noticeable with the better pole?
  
• Was it fun?
  

To report a bug (or just give your opinion):

• Respond to this forum post.
  
• Type: Bug/Feedback (Please only choose one)
  
• Spec: (Please enter the spec that you are providing feedback for here)
  
• Format: Please use “Bold” face text for the Type & Spec then type your feedback in the body of your post. If you are listing a bug please have this text in RED, if you are posting an opinion or feedback please use BLUE.
  
• (Bonus: Concise Feedback & Screen Shots are much appreciated)
  

Examples:

Bug: Lonelywood
I was unable to harvest the thistle in Mielikki's garden.

Feedback: Lonelywood
I think there needs to be more Ostorian relic nodes in the map.

two30

Feedback: Quest: Natural Medicine
The forest is very visually cluttered. Finding small objects (like Medicinal Herbs) and small enemies (like Frost Goblins) is slow. I enjoy the searching aspect, but the number of Medicinal Herbs that need to be found should be reduced from 10.

Feedback: Fishing quests
The fish take up too much inventory space. 6 slots (from a rod and 5 species of fish) is too many.

Feedback: Exiting the zone
I finished the quests for the day and wanted to go back to Bryn Shander, but I had no idea where to find the exit. I purchased a teleport scroll to Protector's Enclave and traveled from there to Bryn Shander. I later learned that the exit is located at a boat at the end of one of the docks, but since the quests lead us into the zone at a different place, this isn't obvious.

Feedback: Wolves again
Poor little wolves. At least they're easier to spot in the forest than the goblins.

valwryn

Firstly, I'd like to say...Nice Job on the area.

Feedback: Quest: Natural Medicine
I like the idea of searching for hard to find stuff in a large area. The Herb plants blend in with the forest and makes it hard to see'm. I've found 20 relics before I found 10 herbs. The issue is gonna be when 20 or more players are hunting the same quest. This could take hours.

Feedback: Fishing Quest
Sometimes, depending on where I stand on the fishing node.....I would spin around and aim for tents behind me instead of the water. No biggy...just turn a retoss. Twice........I was unable to gather my catch cuz I was ambush'd by crabs......which was cool. Ya know someone will scream bloody murder about it. It was only an old boot anyway.

Scouting Party Quest
Before some of you might think it's bugged......The scouting giants patrol a large area........Thru Lots of Trolls, Giants, and Bears (Oh My).

- The Everfrost damage seems to sting a little more in Lonelywood than Bryn. It's not a good idea to group mobs together.

- The AI for the Wolfriders was cool and cruel. They kept their distance from me to attack and made me chase them.

Feedback: Harbor Master Quest
I thought this was gonna be a lame quest. The first three crates I check'd.......nothing. The 4th crate, I was suddenly ambushed by pirates screaming from all directions. Scared the Nine Hells out of my cat.

arabatur

How do you get there? I have done as much of Bryn Shander as is allowed(I think), but I cant see any option to travel to Lonely Wood.

valwryn

arabatur said:

How do you get there? I have done as much of Bryn Shander as is allowed(I think), but I cant see any option to travel to Lonely Wood.

One of the questgivers in Bryn will give ya the quest to Lonelywood.....forget who it was. Just stand around for a minute til someone squeals.

archangelzorak01

Feedback: Lonelywood
Ostorian Relics here in Lonelywood are much more difficult to spot due to coloring as well as clutter.

Feedback: Giants
After killing any giant that puts runes on the ground the player remains in combat for what feels like an excessive amount of time.

(no colors for you)

valwryn

Feedback: Training Day Quest
Took me 3 tries to pass this quest. First failure......I got SNR'd then disconnected. The second failure......well......I took a shortcut thru the Troll camp......I quickly ran thru it and hopp'd the fence.......the Trainee Scout didn't and became breakfast.

Feedback: The Give Medicine to the Sick Quest (forgot real name)
At first I didn't notice'm (the sickie peasants). The blue arua on the map showed that it covered the entire town but they can all be found between the town and the docks. Had me lookin thru and around all the houses.

valwryn

Upon returning to my Stronghold......I got this letter:



Problem is.....I can't find the soup or how to get it.

loboguild

Feedback: Stay Frosty
Finding packs of Frost Goblins proved to be very difficult even on the low populated PTS. This should turn out to be highly annoying on live. A few more mobs here and there can't hurt.

Feedback: Daily Quest Rewards
One Voninblood from daily quests looks to be an error. You get thirty from the minor HEs. Somethings not right there.​​

beckylunatic

valwryn said:

- The AI for the Wolfriders was cool and cruel. They kept their distance from me to attack and made me chase them.

Without having seen them, sounds like the standard AI for riders introduced with IWD barbarians and re-used for ele-cultists. I hate those %&$^ers. Mostly because they're allowed to attack while moving.

valwryn

These wolf riders are more annoying. There's now 3-4 of them. If you're not a range fighter......you'll have to chase'm all and they'll lead you into the next mob(s).

valwryn

Lonelywood


This is a glimpse for those of you not venturing on Preview. The woods are thick with many hills. Lots of mobs could be hiding, ready to ambush you while you look for small plants and relics that is almost the same color as the brush in a very large area. :*

valwryn

*WARNING, WARNING Will Robinson, WARNING*
Do NOT jump into the river in the south.......it's Instant Death!!! >:)

Feedback: Before the Mast Quest
The quest has you looking for trees near a red flag in the highly dangerous part of the forest. As you can see in the pic below. You would think that the red flags would be easy to spot. I found it easier to spot the trees as they are different and big.



There's no tree to chop at the Red Flag (2719, 552). There are still plenty of other trees to chop to get the 5 needed for the mast quest.

two30

valwryn said:

Do NOT jump into the river in the south.......it's Instant Death!!!

I did that accidentally while riding through the forest. Trees... trees... trees... trees... cliff... dead.

I like treacherous terrain for gameplay, but this one surprised me. It seems so harmless compared to the lava and swamps that we traverse with impunity in other zones.

valwryn

There's no background music in Lonelywood............which makes the forest even creepier.

So far I've found 5 droppable quests:

Crab Meat
Icefang
Down on the Farm
Scouting Party
Ol' Crag Claw

two30

Feedback: Quest: Before the Mast
The banners don't appear red on my computer. They appear white or grey. I spent quite a few minutes circling the forest looking for red banners until I realized that the trees were adjacent to white banners.

valwryn

Where's the Fish?

1 pier North of the Exit Pier is not block off at the end and ya fall to the bottom of the sea.

Found the 3 Scrying Stones in Lonelywood and a bunch of needles.

dodgo

you have to have 35 rep to enter?

valwryn

dodgo said:

you have to have 35 rep to enter?

It looks like it's 80 Rep.....normally. The Devs just unlock'd it so some of us can test it out. I guess it was a temporary unlock.

dodgo

ayo devs unlocky plssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

two30

Feedback: If you have an upgraded fishing pole from the Winter Event, try the fishing quests with and without it. Was the difference in completion time noticeable with the better pole?
Doing the quest with the junk default pole, it took me 10 catches to get 200 points. Doing the quest with a max-upgraded purple Brilliant Angler's Fishing Pole, it took me 16 catches to get 200 points. So no, the difference in completion time was not noticeable with the better pole. That may be RNG variance or the bonus may not be working.

Also, the quest gave me a junk pole despite having the Brilliant Angler's Fishing Pole in my inventory. That's useless clutter. I threw the junk pole away, although I could have sold it for 5 copper.

misquamacus2

Must say I do enjoy the fact that it's a bit harder to find stuff on this map and the fact that it's lots of hills hiding wolves and goblins makes it easy just to stumble into them while searching for whatever. I like that

Having said that, the little fishing beach up north had only one fishing spot when I first tried fishing and as I didn't look on the map to find the big south beach I waited a long time for the fish to come back.

valwryn

Today I got my 2nd character to Lonelywood. She only has 37 reputation. Ya need the story quest "Secrets of the Coccoon" to get to Lonelywood. Either that or the devs unlock'd it again.

Feedback: Fishing
Now I have a toon with the Epic Winterfest fishing rod with the lazor sighted scope to try out. I did not catch any old boots and didn't get ambush'd by crabs. Required less fishing spots than the simple rod. It's just a matter of RNG with the quality of fish. So it seems it doesn't matter were the lure falls, (beach, water, tent, old ladies hat) you're gonne catch a fish or boot.

2nd time fishing today for the normal daily quest, still no crab ambush and I caught something rare for the first time, a Knucklehead Trout. Seems to be worth quite a bit at least 80 points.


Suggestion:
Keep the numbers of players onto the Lonelywood Instances to a small number. The forest is such a unique area and best experienced alone. Right now there's maybe 3 at most on at one time. Twice I saw movement thru the trees and I was ready to whammy on to a goblin or troll.......it turned out to be another player. If heavy traffic ventures these woods, then the woods will lose their magic.

hawkeyel

I have very much enjoyed this new area . I have gotten both my GF and SW to this zone Havent yet found anything that has not already been posted just wanted to add nice job.

valwryn

Feedback: Making the Rounds Quest
Now the Big blue aura on the map for this quest makes sense. Today, most of the sick refugess were in town as opposed to the first time when all of them were near the docks.

two30

Feedback: Quest: Making the Rounds
The Sick Refugees should have an interact icon over their heads. They seem to be actively trying to avoid receiving help. They're wearing brown costumes while crouching silent and motionless in a brown town. They look like piles of rubbish, which is really sad.

ashryver

Thanks for the feedback so far. This zone goes against the grain of typical zones. We wanted Lonelywood to give a sense of wonder and exploration through the environment. By having lots of hills and a lot of covered sight lines to encourage players to go off the beaten path. Really wanted it to feel like you can get lost exploring and wandering, lending to this locations name.

two30

ashryver#4991 said:

Thanks for the feedback so far. This zone goes against the grain of typical zones. We wanted Lonelywood to give a sense of wonder and exploration through the environment. By having lots of hills and a lot of covered sight lines to encourage players to go off the beaten path. Really wanted it to feel like you can get lost exploring and wandering, lending to this locations name.

The zone is nice but it makes some of the quests very slow. Since the daily meta quest requires 2 Lonelywood + 1 Bryn Shander or 1 Lonelywood + 2 Bryn Shander, players will pick the quickest of the 3 offered quests. In Lonelywood, this means picking quests that either avoid the forest (by staying in town or on the shore) or go to a specific spot in the forest (like the troll camp). If the forest-wide quests had reduced numbers (e.g. 5 medicinal herbs instead of 10), they could be time-competitive.

ashryver

Fixed the issue where the red banners where showing up as gray/white on medium to low settings. This fix should be in the next build hopefully.

valwryn

Feedback: Fishing Quest
Here's a quality of fish test. One Character using the Simple Rod, the other using the Brillant Angler rod.

Simple Rod

3 Durgrace
1 Brown Bream
5 Candlefish
4 Blackjaw
4 Old Boots
6 Crab Ambushes (1 lost catch)


Brillant Angler's Rod

3 Blackjaw
1 Brown Bream
2 Durgrace
3 Candlefish
1 Knucklehead Trout
Zero Crab ambushes


After running the fish quest 3 times using the Brillant rod, I have yet to see a crab ambush. So everyone run and dust off that epic reel ya have stored in the bank. Makes a big difference.

Feedback: Wolf Rider Chain
Drop'd by a Wolfrider. This should be the last of the droppable quests in this area That I've found. Defeat 25 Wolfriders and Wolves.

beckylunatic

ashryver#4991 said:

Thanks for the feedback so far. This zone goes against the grain of typical zones. We wanted Lonelywood to give a sense of wonder and exploration through the environment. By having lots of hills and a lot of covered sight lines to encourage players to go off the beaten path. Really wanted it to feel like you can get lost exploring and wandering, lending to this locations name.

While I admire the idea behind it and enjoy exploring in games, I would also caution that what @two30 says is very true.

NW strongly enforces a hurry-up attitude because there are so many daily and weekly activities and there is so much repetitive "run a thing a bazillion times and MAYBE you'll get the piece of equipment you wanted, but hahaha just kidding, you probably won't". The overall game isn't supportive of chilling out and exploring, which is also a big problem with keeping more than a small subset of players interested in Foundry. Then there's the matter of, "If you do these specific things, you get AD, but if you do those other things we also put in the game, you get no AD. Those are actually bad things to do, sorry. Sorry 'bout that."

So, no matter how lovingly things that slow down the pace were designed, without a very harsh look at the overall structure of the game, most players are going to avoid anything more than the bare minimum to overcome whatever obstacles are between them and goal X. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Even setting some of that criticism aside for the moment, the utter frustration of needing to find the 10th macguffin and running in circles constantly getting ambushed by wolves really tends to kill any sense of wonder and beauty you might have had at the outset. Cutting down on the number of macguffins needed does shave time off how long a quest takes, but more importantly, it makes players approach the quest from a happier mindset. They can explore the area because they want to, and not because they're being made to feel like the game hates them. Understanding psychology is so important, and I think NW design has really gotten lost in that regard, looking at statistics (players spent X hours doing this content - often because we made danged sure it wasn't possible to do any faster because we kept the macguffin drop rates uber-low and included lots of time running back and forth between objectives) and not satisfaction (players LOVED this content).

Keeping instance player cap low like @valwryn says sounds like a very good idea to me to enhance the experience, provided this isn't going to make a mess of doing heroic encounters. But, if the biggest HEs aren't going to have substantive rewards, probably nobody will bother with them at all.